NxtGen Media - The Freeman View

Flash Remoting

Flash Remoting is a technology that resides on the remote application server. It acts as a gateway to the server and translates calls from a Flash movie into calls that the server can understand. There are proprietary products that provide this functionality. There are also third-party developers who have built open source versions for PHP and Perl. AMFPHP is one such product, and it is very good.

From the site:

“AMFPHP is a free open-source PHP implementation of the Action Message Format(AMF). AMF allows for binary serialization of Action Script (AS2, AS3) native types and objects to be sent to server side services. AMFPHPFlex Data Services (AMF3) and Flash Remoting (AMF0). AMFPHP allows thin client applications built in languages such as Flash, Flex, and AIR to communicate directly with PHP class objects on the server. PHP developers can leverage their PHP experience in server side code development by connecting to data sources such as web-services, databases, and business applications and return that data to the client. Client applications can also offload cpu intensive methods to PHP services and wait for the result set for presentation to the user.”

That prety much sums it up. I remember back in the day we were working with Java on the server side to access our Oracle databases and building our XML to pass into Flash on the fly. The transaction was text based, and as you can imagine, the whole process was very slow, and expensive. Now we have PHP, MySQL, AMF, and AMFPHP. This adds up to a complete open source solution that allows for fast communication between Flash and server side applications. Put another way, a real fast way to get data out of a database into Flash and vice versa. Works very well, and opens up a lot of options for presentation of information in Flash.

DCF

WWT - World Wide Telescope

Not that this has much to do with Flash development, but it does have to do with Rich Internet Applications. Here is one of Microsoft’s entries to the RIA front and it is a darn good one. The WWT app is  a “Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.” The WWT is a media  rich application portal that accesses terabytes of images, information, and stories from multiple sources over the Internet into a seamless, immersive experience. This is just the beginning of where RIAs are going. The possibilities are endless. Let’s just hope the signal to noise ratio is low, because the potential for lot’s of gratuitous crap is very possible with this technology just like the days when everyone had a cheesy Flash intro that invariably got skipped.

-DCF

The Singularity is coming

Nope. It’s not the one predicted by technology industry prognosticator Ray Kurzweil in which he predicts the inevitable rise of the super human cybernetic organism. Naw, this one is much closer and a whole lot more accessible.

This Singularity is a web based web conference. In other words, it is a conference based on web technologies and will take place on the web. It is the dream project of Aral Balkin, one of the well known figures in the Flash community. It is a “green” conference in the fact that few will have to travel to take part in it. Even the speakers will be presenting from home so to speak. It is a great idea, and one I hope takes off. Although, I do love going to conferences and meeting folks, with gas being so expensive, this may be the way conferences are going to go in the future.

-DCF

Searchable Flash

“Designers and Web developers have long been frustrated that search engines couldn’t better access the information within their content created with Flash technology. It’s great to see Adobe and the search engines working directly together to improve the situation,” said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief, SearchEngineLand.com. “The changes should help unlock information that’s previously been ‘invisible’ and will likely result in a better experience for searchers.”

From article Adobe Advances Rich Media Search on the Web

This is great news and is definitely more incentive for folks to develop RIAs in Flash. With the support of Google and Yahoo, this is a big  plus for Adobe and further helps their cause of Flash becoming the RIA development tool of choice. There are still developers out there that scoff at Flash as a true development environment as it is still thought of as an animation novelty by developers of the more established development environments. With the release of the Flash 10 player around the corner, a killer RIA or two will hopefully convince the purist that Flash can be used as an environment for application development.

DCF

Physics Based Games

Was checking out bit-101 blog and noticed a nice post on physics based games done in Flash. The site Fun-motion reviewed about 79 of these game. It serves as a nice little compilation of the state of the art in games being done in Flash to date. Some very cool stuff so far.

-DCF

Software Encyption and US software

In an earlier post, I had ranted about not being able to get a certain package for my RH Linux installation when the same package was freely available with an open source installation. I have become so open source minded that it never occurred to me that it was not that Red Hat refused my request to produce a package for the PHP module mcrypt, it is that they could not by law release such a package.

How ludicrous is that? Here we have an American company trying to sell a technically supported operating system based on open source. They do not create the majority of the software that runs within the environment, yet they are forbidden to release or support any packages that involve encryption. Does not matter that one can go out and build the whole package themselves, or just run Ubuntu and get the kitchen sink. Not to mention that everyone else in the world has access to and is running the open source encryption packages.

I’m not saying that the decision to place these restrictions on US software encryption is right or wrong. I am merely pointing out how it has hindered (not severely) more than a few companies in how they release their software and who they can sell it to. In order for Red Hat to make their OS release available globally, they obviously had to exclude any encryption packages. Just search google for PHP mcrpyt and Red Hat and you’ll see the ton of post asking how to get it working. Somehow, it just does not seem right. I understand the security issue, but I’m not sure that we aren’t shooting ourselves in the foot on this.

-DCF

The Killer App

We have heard of Microsoft’s desperate move to purchase Yahoo in an effort to compete with Google. One has to wonder why? I mean does Microsoft really need a search engine? Is it really that important to have one?

Yep. If they want to continue to exist as a company in the capacity of software and content distribution, they need a search engine to get people to their content. Why you might ask? The answer is in Rich Internet Applications (RIAs).

Question: When is the last time you used your computer, and did not go to the Internet?
Answer: Can’t Remember. When my Internet connection goes down, my system is useless to me.

Now here’s an interesting concept. What if you could connect to the internet, and have access to all your data from anywhere in the world? What if you could literally subscribe to a desktop environment that was completely separate from your PC? Any application that you might need could be available to you from the Internet. Your data would be backed up on a server somewhere out there so data loss due to a personal system failure would become a thing of the past. The need to upgrade your software every time a new version comes out would cease to exist because the desktop service that you subscribe to would handle all the upgrades. In fact, the average computer user regularly uses about six applications: email; chat; web browser; graphics editor; word processor; and spread sheet. These applications are fairly simple and modest in size. Why do they necessarily have to reside locally on the users machine?

Can you see where this is going? Why will the average user need to run Windows when all their data is available online? Most people will just need a simple PC and a basic Operating system to manage connection and local storage. Why would they need to purchase an office suite like Microsoft Office, when they could just use one of the available suites online? What about games? Why would they need to purchase a game, when they could just subscribe to one of the available game services and download what they wanted? Now you can understand the moves Microsoft is trying make with their attempt to purchase a search engine, and the creation of their Flash “equivalent” called SilverLight. The whole digital content distribution chain is getting a makeover and completely new players in the game will emerge.

The more I play with the latest version of Flash and get acquainted with AS3 its programming language, the more I understand how important and powerful its application programmer interface has become. Flash has come a long way from its humble animation beginnings. I can honestly see building all kinds of multimedia applications with it (and not just office suites either). With fiber optics being laid all over the US, it will not be long before working online with a web based application will be trivial and the requirement to distribute software via CD will die. It is no wonder that Microsoft has to make the moves it is making if it wants to stay relevant in this new economy. Interestingly enough, Microsoft is not the only corporation that is in trouble if they do not adapt.

-DCF